1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a spin-current switchable magnetic memory element and a method of fabricating the memory element, and more particularly, to a spin-current switchable magnetic memory element including a plurality of magnetic layers, at least one of the plurality of magnetic layers including an alloy of a rare-earth metal and a transition metal.
2. Description of the Related Art
A two-terminal, bi-stable resistor that is current-switchable can be used as a memory element. One class of such device is a spin-current switchable magnetic junction (e.g., a tunnel junction or a spin-valve junction). The basic physics of these devices is verified in the past few years. The device holds the promise of being the next generation magnetic memory element for scaling down to junction dimensions of 50 nm and below.
Conventional junction devices that have been experimentally demonstrated require too large a switching current—on the order of mid 106 A/cm2, and the junction impedance is too low, only about 1 to 2Ω-μm2. Industry-wide efforts are underway to reduce the amount of switching current required, and to increase the device impedance, for effective integration with back-end-of-line (BEOL) CMOS technology.
One method of reducing switching current is by introducing magnetic materials that have a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. This idea has been quantitatively discussed with respect to related art methods.
A few combinations of materials choices have been previously discussed with respect to related art methods. However, the previously discussed materials choices may tend to require sophisticated thin film synthesis technology such as molecular beam epitaxy.